Dear authors of PODC 2004 As you know, we made a large effort to fit as many good papers as possible into PODC 2004. This means that we *must* save time in the schedule. One method we shall employ to save time is to NOT replace the presentation computer during a session. Such a replacement often consumes precious minutes. If we lose just two minutes per regular paper, or BA, this would sum up to the time for 30 Brief Announcements, or of 6 regular papers! I apologize for any inconvenience this saving of time may cause. However, it is necessary. There are TWO ways you can employ to have your files loaded into the computer that PODC will use for the presentation (courtesy of the local chair and his university). I recommend that you use BOTH methods. That way, if for any reason you face a difficulty to transfer your file when you are in Newfoundland, you already sent your file (or previous version) to the local chair. On the other hand, if you only employ method 2 below (that is, after PODC has started), it is YOUR responsibility to find the opportunity to give the file to your session chair in time. In addition to projecting the presentations from a computer, it will also be possible to project hard copy transparencies, since we shall also have an (overhead) transparencies projector. If you want to be really on the safe side, it is recommended that you also print your presentation on such transparencies. In more detail, the two methods for getting your slides loaded onto the presentation computer are the following: (1) The first method is to mail your file to the local chair at podcmun@cs.mun.ca You need to do that well ahead of the conference, preferably no later than a week in advance. That way, the local arrangements chair and his people will TRY to check that your presentation does work on their computer. However, this will necessarily be a rather superficial check, so: Please name your file by its type (either regular or BA) and the submission number. For example, if your paper is a regular paper, and the submission (back in February) was 34, please name your file R34.ppt. If it is a brief announcement, and its submission number was 12, then please name your file B12.ppt (if it is power point). If you are using a special font, please send font as an attachment, and write : Font: name-of-font in the subject line. (2) The second method is to give the file to the chair-person of your session well ahead of your session. To use this method, we suggest that you bring a disk-on-key (a USB memory device), and/or a CD. If you are not sure your device is standard, it makes sense to either have its driver available (e.g., on the net), or bring the presentation also on a CD, or ALSO on a floppy (I am not sure we shall have a floppy). Please name your file according to the same convention as in method 1. If you also used method 1, please add "method2" to the name, so that the session chair knows this is a later file. It is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to transfer the file to the session chair and to the PODC presentation PC well ahead of your session. We hope we shall have all the files on time. If, for any reason, a presentation will not be on the presentation PC on time, we shall have to make sure that the NEXT presentation will not suffer as a result. Since it may take a few minutes to switch the presentation computer from the computer of an author, back to the PODC computer, we shall need to shorten a presentation (that is not loaded in advance on the PODC presentation computer) by 3 minutes. I personally apologize for this in advance. I hope that you understand it is done only out of necessity. PRESENTATION FORMAT ==================== If you do not intend to use a file, please let the local chair and the program chair know ASAP. As for presentation format, the current software we have is Windows XP, and Power Point XP. In addition, we have Acrobat reader (for PDF). If we manage to obtain additional software, we shall let you know ASAP (please look again at this page). If you are using another version of Power Point, we suggest that you check that your presentation runs properly on this version. It makes also sense to save a copy of your presentation on this version of Power Point. In any case, it is a good idea to also create a PDF file (see advice written by Jaap-Henk). If there is any problem with your Power Point, you will still be able to use the PDF. You may also be able to use HTML (if you save as HTML)--but please check first that the results are satisfactory. Finally, I suggest that you save your file also as PPS. If you are not going to use Power Point, I suggest that you consider using StarOffice (available also on Linux, for example, and on Windows). The resulting files can be presented by Power Point (but I suggest that you check in advance how well it is presented). In addition, Star Office can save directly as PDF. StarOffice is available to download for free for academic and research purposes. Even if you are using Power Point. If you use any special file on plug-ins, please send it to the local chair too, well in advance, and turn his attention to this fact. If you still cannot deal with these options, and really need something special, can you please let the program chair and the local arrangement chair know ASAP? We shall try to see what we can do. Thank you for your patience. See you in Newfoundland! Shay